Sustainability Practices and Greenwashing Risk in the Italian Poultry Sector: A Grounded Theory Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper's topic and conducted research are very important and justified to be presented in a high-quality Journal. The subject is very important for the literature. The manuscript is well structured. The research is presented clearly and consistently, but some issues need to be addressed carefully. My decision is a minor revision with some amendments. Please see my comments and suggestions below.

Comment 1. A literature review should be provided to describe the research gap that motivates your whole analysis, and to give readers some basic understanding of previous literature. Thus, you may alternatively (1) a literature review is decomposed from the introduction as a section. (2) add a specific section for the literature review.

Comment 2. The author should add the model according to the Grounded Theory study, including the process and results of open coding, the process and results of axial coding, selective coding, and theoretical saturation tests.

Comment 3. In section 3. Results, the authors seem to "only report the results". I suggest that authors use several representative studies (2 or 3) in this area to interpret and enrich the results.

Comment 4. In section 5. Conclusion, please add the theoretical contribution of the study conducted; what contributions? For whom?

Good luck for your work!

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this interesting project.

Good Luck!

Kind Regards,

Reviewer

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper approaches a topic very relevant for the practicians - ESG reporting - but is not equally investigated in mainstream academic journals. The second strong point of the article is the focus on an significant industry , but which is, also, not so appealing up to now to researchers. Nevertheless, the findings and conclusions fail to highlight the ESG practices in the field. 

In the following, we will briefly comment on each section of the paper, hoping that the suggestions will lead to development of the analysis. 

Introduction

- The relationship between CSR and ESG is only briefly mentioned, although it is a complex one and several perspective are considered. 

- Arguments supporting the adoption of the Grounded theory might be provided.

- Data referring to the impact of the poultry sector on the environment should be also considered, in order to better support the relevance of the investigation, to highlight the high risks of greenwashing.

- The correlations between ESG and greenwashing are not considered explicitly. 

Materials and Methods

- The introduction states that there is a study considering the theory in poultry sector in the Philipines while this section states that it has never been considered. 

- The arguments for using the theory for this study are presented. Nevetheless, limits should also be taken into account. 

Subjects

- We recommend to provide more information about the subjects. Are all of them entrepreneurs? how big are their farms? how long is their experience in the field? 

Results

- we suggest to explain the main lines of presenting the findings in the methodological section and explain their relevance. 

- The second section - Identity - is not so clear. The relationship with sustainability might be enhanced considering the focus of the investigation. 

- More attention should be given to environmental focus, and especially to ESG approaches and reporting. 

Discussion and conclusions

- These sections should be reconsidered after more in-depth investigation of the central topics of the research - sustainable approaches, ESG adoption and reporting etc. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

This paper focuses on the Italian poultry industry, using the grounded theory methodology approach and obtaining significant results and discussions. The poultry industry in Italy is controlled by a few firms, and the poultry meat and eggs produced are closely related to domestic consumption. Therefore, we consider it worthwhile that this study to prevent and avoid greenwashing phenomena was carried out in Italy as one model. I want to accept it after minor revision.

Line 139-141: Please explain why you decided to follow the interpretative approach in more detail. Can you rewrite it into a more coherent sentence, not using "<<", "[…]", and ">>"? Additionally, in the interpretative approach of real organizations and enterprises, I believe that coding should be done as objectively as possible, eliminating personal feelings about data. Please state that it was appropriately done in this study.

Line 166-173: I could not quickly determine whether data collection was collected appropriately, especially about the number of data. In the previous report about the investigation of social responsibility in poultry farms [21], data were collected from one hundred and seventeen participants. The data from the first interviews with 6 participants were less. Was it made until no new category emerged? Additionally, only one veterinarian had been present in the third interview. Wasn't it necessary to interview another vet?

Line 173: Wasn't there any bias in the areas where the interviews were conducted?

Line 185: Please correct to "displayed (or shown) in Table 2".  In addition, "displayed in Table 3" and " displayed in Table 4" are missing in the description of the results.

Line 330-334: These statements or content should be transferred to the “Conclusions” section. The word greenwashing is lacking in the “Conclusions” section.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for considering the comments and recommendations. The new version of the research is significantly improved and much clearer. Generally, the paper is well structured and documented, with solid arguments and discussions. The tighter connection between ESG and identity is inspired and relevant. Still, overall, I believe that a greater focus should be put both on ESG and greenwashing when presenting the results of the interviews. Still, the focus goes on operations and strategy. The discussions do not give a very clear perspective on what are actually the farms doing in terms of ESG, while the discussions connecting the actual ESG approaches with greenwashing have no relevant reference points at the moment. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf